GRETCHEN HASSE: But would you say that this is maybe, you know, something that you would definitely do different next time and you believe that this is one of the things that really pleasantly surprised you?

CASEY FARINA: There’s a host of really mundane technical issues that I don’t want to get into that you have to do different in order to improve the project.

GRETCHEN HASSE: Was it lighting?

CASEY FARINA: What’s that?

GRETCHEN HASSE: Lighting?

CASEY FARINA: Yeah. Well, that -- We -- That was in the works up until the last few weeks...

GRETCHEN HASSE: Right.

CASEY FARINA: ...as far as trying to put a light inside the blimps, and then other things stopped working and, you know, you have to prioritize something. So, that’s definitely, you know, 2.0.

GRETCHEN HASSE: [LAUGHING]

CASEY FARINA: Hopefully, we can get some lights either on the blimps or inside because they’re white, so...

GRETCHEN HASSE: Yeah.

CASEY FARINA: I think they would be pretty translucent. As far as the movement of them, it was really interesting. The -- At the beginning of the project I think I had just a drastically unrealistic expectation of how maneuverable they would be. Essentially, thinking that I would be able to turn one on a dime and do, you know, a lot of really complex maneuvers, and that proved to be a lot more difficult that I had anticipated. There’s a lot -- They have -- There’s a lot of inertia involved in the blimp movement, and especially when they’re spherical. We needed to use a spherical shape because that’s going to provide us the most volume and the most lift to get the sound system up there. However, that’s sort of aerodynamically undesirable because it means the blimp is more prone to spinning almost constantly, so it needs to be auto-correcting for that a lot. And so we had a pretty limited amount of control over certainly the direction they were going. It would be more of an up and down than the left to right at this point. The way they move is really, really difficult to control. Even when I just bypass things sort of computer program, just trying to control myself was extremely difficult. It was like playing the game Asteroid, you know, where your floating around and there’s a lot of inertia and everything...

GRETCHEN HASSE: Mmm hmm.

CASEY FARINA: ...but you’re playing eight simultaneous games of Asteroid at the same time, and so that was really difficult.

I went into with this idea of being able to map out exactly where we wanted them. In the future, I think we’re going to try and do something more where -- Fortunately we learned that they’re pretty durable. If it hits a wall, if they hit each other, it’s not the end. They’re not going to come down crashing down.

GRETCHEN HASSE: Thank goodness for that.

CASEY FARINA: Yeah. That was so good. What we can definitely do is control the quality of movement and definitely elevation, and I think we’ll be able to map some of those, sort of the quality of movement onto some of the music a little more directly hopefully without so much concern for exactly where a blimp, where a certain blimp is.

GRETCHEN HASSE: How do you tell them apart when you’re trying to control them?

CASEY FARINA: That was difficult...

GRETCHEN HASSE: [LAUGHING]

CASEY FARINA: ...as far as which one was where and then which one -- to which direction which one is facing. Hopefully in the future, once we get the lights on, we’ll be able to. Part of the original plan was using a camera to see all of them on the computer screen and have them be able to track it. That didn’t exactly happen the first time, but hopefully in the future, if we can just use different, certainly different colored lights on each one, I think it that’ll help us, help the computer be able to identify which one’s which and which one’s where and which direction it’s facing. The quality of movement with them, and it will be really organic. As far as certain people who talked to me afterwards about they seem to have different personalities or thing -- anthropomorphizing the blimps in a way I have never anticipated people doing. And so that was really successful. I thought certainly not intentional but I’ll take it.